How to sell royal holiday membership
Vacation Club Scam -- How To Spot Them and Protect Yourself
0:00 / 0:00
Timecodes:
a vacation club in a nutshell is a
fraudulent business model where a
company or a group of sales individuals
attempt to convince couples during
in-person marketing pitches that they
can save thousands of dollars on their
future travel by joining a club and that
club comes with upfront fees which you
must pay right there on the spot my
investigation of the vacation club scam
near my hometown began when I received
this unsolicited letter in the mail it
promised a free trip anywhere in the
country valued at almost $1,400 if I
call the phone number and agreed to a 90
minute presentation on saving money
through a new travel product the letter
is designed to trick you into attending
an in-person sales pitch the sales pitch
is held in a nondescript location a
hotel conference room or a vacated
office space and the salespeople only
let in those individuals they feel are
vulnerable to their pitch the
demographic they prefer are usually
older baby boom generation folks who
don't appear tech savvy you're often
asked to prove you have a credit card
and to fill out a form saying that you
enter the presentation of your own free
will and attesting to having a minimum
amount of income the presenters attempt
to build a one-on-one rapport with their
marks before the presentation begins the
presentation I was invited to was given
by travel suppliers of America for a
product they called member choice they
began the presentation by claiming their
company had been providing travel
benefits for 25 years since 1988 with a
hundred and fifty thousand Travel Club
members in reality a quick google search
shows the company was created in April
of 2013 has a content void hastily put
together website their office is listed
as the room I was sitting in and there
is no such reference on the Internet to
the product called member choice
septon complaints from the previously
scammed in short the first things these
salespeople tell you are easily debunked
lies next they will show you sample
trips dream vacations to places such as
Hawaii Italy Australia and show you
their prices vs Expedia Orbitz or
Travelocity what you could find on the
Internet it took me less than five
minutes with a computer to prove their
price differences were a complete
fiction an Alaskan cruise they told me
which would normally cost three thousand
dollars a person could be provided only
by their club for 789 dollars in reality
the cruise company itself offers a price
lower than that and three thousand
dollars would buy you the nicest suite
on the entire boat they want you to pay
anywhere between five thousand and ten
thousand dollars immediately following
the presentation to join the club in
addition to a documentation fee of $399
and an annual fee of $299 in my
presentation they offered a free one
thousand dollar trip to the first couple
to sign up to myself and my partner they
offered to drop the price to three
thousand dollars if we would join right
then and as we intended to leave they
drop the price again to $1,500 their
goal is simple to get you freely to sign
a contract with them which will be
legally binding which you won't be able
to cancel and which will transfer money
to their business once you leave having
given them your money it's nearly
impossible to ever recover it again and
remember that gift they promised you of
the free trip
it's a practically useless application
for a voucher with fine print so
cleverly designed that it's most likely
you'll freely hand over more money to
another shady business getting nothing
in return the key thing you must
remember about these presentations is
this nothing they are telling you is
true and there is no such thing as a
travel deal you can only get by giving a
company you've never heard of money in a
sales pitch
